What Were They Thinking- The Inferior Spider-Man

You've got to wonder sometimes how the brains behind the big comic book companies work, some of the decisions they make are so screwy. Due to the value of the intellectual property of all characters not even z-list heroes like The Creeper are allowed to be put out to pasture. We've already covered that when we talked about the death of Superman and it's effect on comics, but in a world where Dick Greyson and Bucky Barnes only get to take over their mentors roles for a month and a bit, Marvel's recent run on Spider-Man has got to be the most confusing thing they have ever done.

Ok, lets over look the frankly stupid method of how it was done, because I don't get it myself and look at what happened. Basically, for those that don't know, Doctor Octopus has managed to remove his own psyche from his body and place it in Peter Parker's, leaving Peter to die in Octopus' cancer ridden body, with only Peter's conscience surviving in his old body, Octavius soon gets rid of that. This means that Doc Ock is now Spider-Man and he is trying to be a superior Spidey to Pete, by going around and killing bad guys. Now, call me old fashioned, but I kinda liked Pete as Spidey and Doc Ock as Doc Ock (mainly because he was a classic villain). What they've done, in my opinion, is confusing and pointless, Spidey never needed to be shaken up to revive sales, he's Marvels most constant best seller. What they've done there is dropped sales. You've also got rid of one of the top 3 most popular heroes of all time and one of his greatest nemeses. All whilst bringing back old heroes from the dead because you don't think people will like someone else replacing them.

Now, I know that this is probably only going to be temporary, but I felt it was so stupid and badly thought out it deserved highlighting. Even a temporary major screw up is still a major screw up and Marvel has majorly screwed up here.

6 Responses to What Were They Thinking- The Inferior Spider-Man

Holy crap! I had heard about this story line and thought it was a bad joke. They actually went through with it? Yikes! The Clones story line seems like a major win from this perspective. Heck, the Star Wars prequels look like a major win compared to THAT! 😉

Oh, come on, guys… This one’s EASY! Remember when “The Pepsi Taste Challenge” was making people think Pepsi tasted better than Coke? And Coke discontinued their flagship product to bring out “The New Coke”, that was supposed to taste more like Pepsi?
Sure, people hated it! THAT was the point! Then, when you bring back “Coke Classic” (or “Spidey Classic”), the rubes will all be grateful that YOU realized what a horrible mistake you made…
And they will have proved that you had a winning product all along!
Now, I’m not sure the timing was right…
I don’t know what set them off, thinking that there was any kind of threat to the ‘brand’…
It may just be that Mr. Slott is as sick of ‘dark’ Superheroes (who are “The very Best at What They Do!”) as I am, and wants to show that such an approach will NOT work with Spider Man.
I’m not sure they’re going to get much of a ratings boost when Petey comes back, so, yes, this may be a bigger disaster than “The New Coke” (which is about on a par with saying a new car is worse than the Edsel)!
Or (shudder!)…
It may be worse than that! I’ve heard rumors that they want to merge the baseline and “Ultimates” universes, and that they want to make Miles Morales the “one true and only Spider Man”…
What better way to pave THAT road, than to eliminate Peter Parker as the other choice, and present it as “Well, who would you rather have as Spider Man, Miles Morales or Doc Ock?”…
All of a sudden, I’m feeling very queasy…

I think it could be an interesting perspective if done well: the idea of a villain in the hero’s body, with the hero’s memories and those personalities in conflict has some cool prospects. And even if it sucks, its pretty easy to retcon. Just say that Peter’s personality eventually won back its body or something and you’re back to normal.

Oh, THAT could be interesting…
But that’s not what happened!
Peter’s Personality is gone, his memories are gone, his ‘conscience’ lingered for awhile, but now is gone…
Doesn’t leave very much, does it?

Or (shudder!)…
It may be worse than that! I’ve heard rumors that they want to merge the baseline and “Ultimates” universes, and that they want to make Miles Morales the “one true and only Spider Man”…
What better way to pave THAT road, than to eliminate Peter Parker as the other choice, and present it as “Well, who would you rather have as Spider Man, Miles Morales or Doc Ock?”…
All of a sudden, I’m feeling very queasy…

I liked SOME of the changes done to Spidey BUT since Civil War they have been some rather stupid characterizations of existing characters: Spider-man WOULD NEVER reveal his secret identity to the general public (anyone remember the first appearance of Venom…that’s why he wouldn’t reveal his secret identity)

The current trend is to make characters darker than they should and getting away from the things that make them heroes.

I have stopped reading the current DC/Marvel comics because they have writers who aren’t even familiar with the characters they writing about